The Posies

The Posies' major-label debut doesn't get a whole lot of love; it's basically considered the forgotten precursor to the band's masterpiece, Frosting on the Beater. But that's way too harsh. Featuring the soaring harmonies of Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer, Dear 23 is an ambitious -- if flawed -- fusion of mid-'60s folk-rock, orchestral pop and British shoegaze. The Posies hit their peak on "You Avoid Parties" and "Any Other Way," both of which are shot through with mood and melancholy.

You couldn't swing a dead cat last year without hitting a new Sixties-style power-pop band
– Jellyfish, Trip Shakespeare, the Cavedogs, just to name a few. But Jellyfish is happy to be
the Yankee equivalent of XTC (revisionism with a touch of wry), Trip Shakespeare adds
campy Seventies pretension to the mix, and the Cavedogs sound like an apple-cheeked
roots-rock version of mid-Sixties Who. If this major-label follow-up to Failure, th... More >